Mon ami américain

Hello, my friends. In the early 2000 and tens, I was in the United States very often. I worked with American companies, which allowed me to travel quite regularly to states like California, Nevada and Utah. By the way, there are probably a few videos from that time on this channel. And then one day, I remember it was a Sunday. It was a Sunday. I was in Salt Lake City, the capital of the state of Utah. And then I went to what is called the Mormon Tabernacle. So what is this Mormon Tabernacle? It's a building located in the city center. It's a huge concert hall with an impressive organization. And for a very long time, it's probably the oldest live radio show. There's a live radio broadcast every Sunday. It's a tradition that has continued for decades and decades. It's an institution there. Admission is free. So I went inside, sat down and took a seat. Five minutes later, a man came to sit next to me. And very quickly the conversation started. Americans are extremely approachable. When you're in the United States and then you come back to Europe, you get the impression that Europeans are a bit stuck on how to say it politely. So we were chatting, and then I said to him, you know, I like you. I'm going to tell you a story. I told him a personal story, something that happened to me in Switzerland. He listened to me, and it was something that resonated with him. And then he answered me. He said, you know, I like you too. I'm going to tell you something. He told me something about his private life. And then the show started. But we continued chatting during the show. And then at the end, before leaving, he gave me his phone number. He said, call me, we should meet again, and all that. So I called him, talked. He invited me to his place. I went to see him. There were his children, there was his wife, an extraordinary family. They welcomed me. They welcomed me. I remember it was a really great reception. Plus, when I arrived in the neighborhood, I had gotten a bit lost. And I had arrived in an extremely flashy car. It was a Ford Mustang, the 5L V8. I remember that several neighbors were already at the windows. He was impressed by this car. He was teasing me. I told him, here, take it. Take it for a drive. And he didn't want to. He sat like that in the driver's seat. And he was. And so he explained to me, since the bedroom was upstairs, if there was ever an intruder, he would have to go through the hallway, through the entrance, and then take the stairs. The stairs were narrow, with a shotgun she couldn't miss it. She showed me a huge shotgun lying on the table in the dining room. Loaded, of course. And then a few days later, he called me back. He said, listen, my father is coming to see me. There was a party, it was the 4th of July. He said, My father is coming to see me. And there you have it. He said, my father is very sick. He seems okay. He's old, but he's sick. We don't give him much. What do I do? I said, listen, I have a professional camera in the closet in the hotel room. If you want, I'll come and take photos. He agrees, I'll come to celebrate. So on the 14th, July 14th, I almost said the 4th of July. And then I'll take lots of photos when I get back to the uk, and then I'll send them to him. So since his Internet is slow, I'll put them on DVDs and then send them to him by FedEx. And then we'll stay in touch for years. We'll chat and chat, it depends. Sometimes we'll start an email chain. It'll be almost tit for tat for three weeks, and then it'll stop for a few months. Then afterwards, there would be an event in my life for his that justified starting a new thread and so on. And we continued to communicate in this way, exchanging photos, news about our families, all that. And then suddenly, in 2017, he wrote to me. He said, listen, my son is sick. He told me, we were in the garden, he suddenly fell, he collapsed. He took him to the hospital. The son in question was 22, 23 years old at the time. He told me he collapsed. And then we took him to the hospital. They did a CT scan and he had a brain tumor, some kind of. He. He told me the name, something horrible. Just reading the name, you know it's serious. And there you have it. So a long email where there were the hopes of a father, his fears about what was happening. I replied to him, we chatted a bit, and then the threat arrived. The last email was from me, but I didn't get back to him. I didn't follow up with him. He didn't get back to me. And then life, you know, the thing is that very often we don't realize how quickly time passes. It happens. We don't realize how quickly things happen in life. We get swept away. Like these last 18 months that I didn't even feel go by with this Covid, these crises, this paranoia, everything that's happening, where time seems to stand still, yet it passes. And then, you know, somewhere, maybe, maybe, I mean, maybe unconsciously, I didn't go to him, maybe to avoid asking him how his son is doing. Do you understand? And I assure you, I'll tell you something. I'll tell you something. I'm not the guy who runs away from these situations. If someone tells me that someone I know has cancer or is having a problem in their life or something, I'm the first to pick up the phone and answer. And I resent people who say I didn't dare do it because he has cancer. I don't know what to say. You pick up the phone, you call for me. That's how it is. You pick up the phone and you call there. Maybe it was subconsciously that I didn't want to call. Maybe subconsciously I didn't want to call him to ask him how his son was doing, how his son had developed. And then life took its course and time passed until yesterday. Yesterday was the 4th of July, and I suddenly remembered those moments of the fourth of July that we had spent together as a family with his father, his mother, his husband, his children. Uh, and then I said to myself, hey, I'm going to contact Paul to see how he's doing. I'm going to contact him to find out how he's doing. I was going to write an email. And then I thought to myself, maybe he's opened a Facebook account. Maybe he's on some social media account. I know that's not really his thing, but I thought, maybe. So I took to Google and I Googled and there and there, my friends, it was like a slap in the face. It was a big slap in the face. I found a local newspaper. First result, it was a local newspaper. The local newspaper talked about Paul's death, talked about his death. He died. He died in June 2019. He died. The local newspaper didn't say what it was from. I was in shock. I thought, no, maybe it's someone else. Maybe it's someone with the same name. Then I looked at his photo. It was him. He was there smiling in the photo. And there you go. He died. That's why he never came back to me. He died. And then the second one, there was another newspaper that also talked about the death of his son. In fact, by an extraordinary set of circumstances, the father died in 2019, in June 2019. And his son, who had cancer, a brain Tumor, died in 2020 and died in August 2020. And on Facebook, I found a video from a local funeral home showing the Funeral. And I tried to call. I'm trying to call now. I parked. I'm trying to call. I have two numbers for him. There's a cell phone number that goes to an answering machine. There's a landline number. And there I have an answering machine that says that this number no longer exists. But there you have it. I'm trying to get in touch with his wife. I'll maybe send her a letter to the last address I knew. But that's to tell you why I'm telling you all this. I'm telling you all this. I want to tell you, my friends, if you have friends, if you have family, if you have people that you appreciate, that you care about and that you haven't talked to for a while. Once you stop this video, go right to them. Send them a message. It doesn't matter. An email, a letter, a postcard, a text message, it doesn't matter. Show them your support. Tell them things that you want to tell them if they're not there tomorrow. Because I realize that life is short. I realize that it's later than we think and that we leave each other. I share this with you with a lot of bitterness, you know, I regret it. I regret it. I tell myself I should have. I should have called him. I should have. Did he need me? At a certain time when I wasn't there, could I have done something for him? I really regret. I regret. I regret myself for getting carried away by life. For getting carried away perhaps sometimes by stories that aren't worth it. And for missing out on the essential, you know, during that time, we miss out on the essential. We miss out on things that will never come back. You see, if we miss them. There you go, my friends. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to share this experience with you. It's something that feels like a slap in the face to me. Really. It's like a slap in the face from life that reminds me of what's essential. There you go. I. I wanted to share this with you. I don't want you to discover this like I did, like I discovered it. You discover it when you realize that it's already happened. Do you understand? I would like to be able to communicate to you what's deep inside me so that you can reach out to the people you love. Today, you call them, you contact them, you tell them that you love them. There you go, my friends. See you soon.